How Are We to Think of Gun Violence Prevention...As a Congregation, As a Community: Reframing the Conversation About Gun Safety and Gun Violence Prevention with Professor Jonathan M. Metzl
Thursday, June 6, 7:00 pm- 8:00 pm via Zoom
The gun violence prevention groups at D.C.’s Temple Sinai and North-ern Virginia’s Temple Rodef Shalom find the latest book by Prof. Jonathan Metzl, What We’ve Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms (WWB), so compelling and valuable to inform our understanding of gun violence and our search for solutions that we’ve asked Prof. Metzl to provide an overview of what his scholarship and analysis have revealed.
We are also delighted to present Prof. Daniel Webster, distinguished gun violence policy scholar at Johns Hopkins University, to comment on the book.
As Americans, we feel frustrated and helpless with every gun incident we hear about or experience. “Not again” and
“not here!” are refrains that have become meaningless. Where the politics of the issue pit us as pro-gun or anti-gun,
WWB provides a new framework through which to examine the human actions involved, the systems we expect to address gun violence and all its contributing factors, the sociological, cultural and geographic contexts, and possible avenues for change based on this uniquely societal overview of gun violence.
Prof. Metzl has taken a different, more “cause and effect” approach to gun violence prevention than other authors.
The GVP groups of Temples Sinai and Rodef Shalom strongly recommend WWB as very helpful in considering how
we- as individuals, congregations, and communities- should respond to the unending tide of gun violence in America.
Jonathan M. Metzl is the Frederick B. Rentschler II Professor of Sociology and Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University, where he is also Director of the Center for Medicine, Health, and Society. As his credentials suggest, Prof, Metzl provides a unique blend of frameworks to address the scourge of gun violence and deaths in America. He’s also working with colleagues in Israel to explore gun violence there.
Among his other published works are books on the impact of racial resentment on our politics; the interplay of
health and morality; schizophrenia and race; and the impact of psychiatric drugs on society.
Prof. Metzl is a recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Book Award, a Guggenheim fellowship, and the
American Psychiatric Association’s Benjamin Rush Award. He’s appeared or been cited in the New York Times,
C-SPAN, Real Time with Bill Maher, and numerous other media.
For further information, please contact Steve Klitzman, Temple Sinai GVP Group, at steve.klitzman@gmail.com or
Irv Katz, Temple Rodef Shalom GVP Group, at irvkatz7501@gmail.com
Register for the Zoom presentation here.
